Being that I average twenty-five to thirty loads a week and of those, seventy-five percent are drop and hook, you would be correct in assuming I have streamlined my pre-trip routine. Although all aspects of your pre-trip inspection are equally important, one that I have seen a few people lately have an issue with is making sure you have lockjaw. No, I am definitely not talking about the kind you can get from stepping on a rusty nail. Rather, the one I am talking about involves the locking jaws of you fifth-wheel.
Recently, I have witnessed a couple of these "oops" moments around the area that I operate in involving the lack of a good connection between truck and trailer. If you have ever seen the results, whether it was a dropped trailer blocking a driveway or an overturned trailer making a turn, you know right away the importance of making sure you have a good connection. There are several things you can do to avoid losing your trailer and saving you the embarrassment of everyone looking as they go by in amazement. The first thing I recommend is checking trailer height in proportion to your fifth-wheel prior to sliding underneath. If you happen to back straight in without looking, there is a probability that your trailer may be too high and your fifth-wheel jaws will lock around the wrong part of the kingpin. Even after you hook the kingpin at the correct height, do a “tug test”. Put your transmission in low forward gear after hooking, but with landing gear still down and trailer brakes set, then give it a little "tug" to make sure it doesn’t disconnect. The third failsafe in all of this is something I almost never see anyone actually do, but is something that I do each and every time I connect to a new trailer. To put my mind at ease, I actually get out of the truck with my trusty LED flashlight, shine it into where the jaws lock around the kingpin, and visually inspect that a proper connection is made and the jaws are locked around the middle of the kingpin. Can you tell which of these two pictures is improperly latched?
Besides saving yourself some embarrassment, you can also save on a very costly mistake by making sure you take the extra few seconds to insure your trailer is not going to come unhooked. I myself have never dropped a trailer, but I have had one come loose during a “tug test” and was able to save my own rear by doing so. Had I have lost it while in motion, there is no telling how it could have ended up. Thanks to conducting each these safety checks in practice, I hope to never have to know what it is like!